Three UK Jewish Papers Run Unprecedented Joint Editorial Condemning Corbyn’s Anti-Semitism

Three UK Jewish Papers Run Unprecedented Joint Editorial Condemning Corbyn’s Anti-Semitism
Asserting that the election of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party into power in the United Kingdom would pose an “existential threat” to the Jewish community in the UK, the three leading Jewish newspapers ran a shared editorial titled “United we Stand,” on Wednesday.
In the jointly authored editorial, The Jewish News, The Jewish Chronicle and Jewish Telegraph explained that the decision to join forces was “because the party that was, until recently, the natural home for our community has seen its values and integrity eroded by Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel.”
After years of “alarming lows” between the Corbyn-led Labour Party and the Jewish community, the incident that prompted the three papers to speak out was “last week’s stubborn refusal to adopt the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, provoking Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge to call her leader an antisemite to his face.” This, the editorial stated, “was the most sinister yet.”
In so doing, the Labour Party has “diluted the IHRA definition, accepted in full by the government and more than 130 local councils,” regarding four provisions governing anti-Semitism and Israel.
The Labour Party’s guidelines mean that “a Labour Party member is free to claim Israel’s existence is a racist endeavour and compare Israeli policies to those of Nazi Germany, unless ‘intent’ — whatever that means — can be proved.” In short, the editorial asks, ‘Dirty Jew’ is wrong, ‘Zionist bitch’ fair game?”
The editorial charged that had Labour not amended the IHRA guidelines regarding Israel, “hundreds, if not thousands, of Labour and Momentum members would need to be expelled.”
Observing that the current Conservative government is in “disarray” over Brexit, the editorial asserted, “there is a clear and present danger that a man with a default blindness to the Jewish community’s fears, a man who has a problem seeing that hateful rhetoric aimed at Israel can easily step into antisemitism, could be our next prime minister.”
The editorial concluded by noting that Labour has a vote set for September 5 to adopt the full IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. This will force members of the Labour Party to make a stark choice, “implement IHRA in full or be seen by all decent people as an institutionally racist, antisemitic party.”
[Photo: The Jewish Chronicle / Facebook]